Fluoxetine Hydrochloride
by Lament of Meow
Summary: Ratchet's feeling a bit depressed after the hardships of being a war-medic get to be too much for him. The Twins try and find a way to help him out of his funk. Ratchet/Twins


End of the year blues. I'm going to miss everyone here and just realizing that I'm not gonna be living with my roommates next year makes me really...sad. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna be living with my best friend EVER, but these girls have become my family and I just don't know how I'm going to be able to leave them.

So basically I've been in a down period for a few days and this is my therapeutic way of trying to get out of it.

And the best part is that it kind of worked. :)

Hope you might be able to get some kind of enjoyment out of it, but while rereading it in a slightly less than ANGST mood it seems that I might have overdone some parts on the angst scale. But it's there and it helped me get over my own WHY DOES LIFE HATE MEEEEEEEEEEEEH spell, so...oh, AND it's unbetaed because I love my beta too much to force her into reading something that starts with a whole paragraph that basically defines depression. So if ya find something, please give a shout out.

Ah, enjoy anyway?

**Edit: My beta rocks so hard. She was awesome enough to do another one of her outstanding defacto betas and the results were extraordinary. I also de-italicized a few words because there was waaaaay to many italicized words that it eventually sucked all the meaning out of even doing it in the first place. ****My gratitude to Kireania who noticed that I happen to repeat my word meanings sometimes, as well. ****Many thanks to all of you that have reviewed, it means a lot to me and I'm completely gobsmacked over the idea that you all took the time to leave such kind words.  
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Depression was a disease that, really, did not affect them. It plagued the humans—an imbalance of hormones in their fleshy brains that caused them to feel sadness not proportional to their actual life circumstances. Ratchet knew that this was considered a serious dilemma and that medications and therapy and all kinds of help were given to those suffering from the affliction. He knew with absolute certainty that the disease wasn't catching and he knew with an _abundance _of absolute certainty that there was _no way_ he would have been able to catch it even if it _were_.

And yet for the past few orns there had been a nagging in the back of his processors that made his CPU ache with an unrepentant need for something to go _right_ once in a while instead of just all these horrible shades of wrong that seemed to constantly run into him over and over again. The latest battle had been one of the worst since they had landed on earth and, as per usual, he was stuck doing lasting repairs on his two twin subjects that always managed to be his most frequent. Though the necessary repairs weren't any more gruesome than usual, the whole time he had been mending he just couldn't shake the odd, macabre turn his processors had insisted on taking. Everything around him—Mirage's broken leg, Prowl's _missing _leg—just seemed, for some reason, all more horrible than usual. Logically the medic knew that, as a medic, of course he would only be privy to the horrors and ghastly aftereffects of battle—limbs torn off, helms askew, dripping energon lines, and unsavable optics pleading for just a hint of sympathy before…

Ratchet's hand shook and the straight line he had been welding in Sunstreaker's armor took a crooked slant, one that the vain bot immediately noticed, "Hey, watch it won't you?!"

All noise in the room stopped. No one, absolutely _no one_, talked to The Hatchet in that tone in _his_ medbay. Sideswipe could only stare in horror at his brother as a slow astonishment and echoing horror spread over the golden twin's face as he realized just who his automatic snarky insult had been aimed at. First Aid spent about three astroseconds just gaping at the audacity before deciding that it would be best for all concerned if perhaps the portion of the medbay where the Twins, Ratchet, and a whole lot of yelling were about to take place might be sealed off from the rest of the room and the soundly recharging, recovering, and above all _convalescing_ mechs.

Echoing his thoughts, Swoop dropped the tools he had been helping to clean and put back into their proper places and lunged for the curtain that would secure the corner of the medbay into its own soundproof section, dragging the flexible material from one wall to the other, counting himself (and the others) lucky that he managed it before the Hatchet had even started laying into Sunstreaker.

"And you considered those things a 'wasted' expense." Jazz said dryly from where he sat at Prowl's medberth, waving a hand at the curtain that completely sealed off the corner of the room, his mate being the only patient still online.

Prowl twitched an optic ridge, somewhat from the implied insult to his ability to balance a budget but mostly from the still small twinges of pain his receptors persisted in sending him from the gaping, but thankfully now sealed off, stub where his right leg used to be, "We have five fully functional operating rooms, I didn't really see the need for the sound-proof curtains whose seemingly only purpose was to change any berth into yet _another_ operating room."

"Apparently it _also_ serves the purpose of saving us from getting our audios chewed out." Jazz snickered back at his mate and Prowl only humped in controlled agreement as Aid and Swoop could only try to stifle their laughter as they picked up the dropped tools and went back to their cleaning duties.

* * *

Ratchet hadn't moved. His hands were still against Sunstreaker's arm plating and while his welder had automatically shut off so that the flames weren't continually licking at the warrior's paintjob, the medic didn't give the slightest inclination that he even noticed. His optics were seemingly all but glued to the remaining segment of the gash on gold plating that he hadn't quite gotten to yet though he didn't seem to be moving any time soon _to_ get to it.

Once Sideswipe managed to wrap his CPU around the fact that his brother wasn't, for some reason, immediately getting reamed for his comment, he couldn't help but note the continued lack of response from the stationary form of the medic.

"Hey, Sides?" Sunny whispered over to his twin, not daring to move his arm or any other part of his chassis, his own optics surveying the medic before him.

"Yeah?" Sideswipe whispered back, coming to stand on the other side of his twin's medberth, stooping a bit to get a better look at the downcast medic's helm.

"Did we…did we break him?" Sunstreaker didn't get worried. _Especially_ not for anyone else. Besides his twin. But then, he always told himself, that was only cause if his twin managed to slag himself up then who would he get to help him buff out the scrapes in his armor that he couldn't reach?

"I don't _think_ so." Sideswipe muttered softly, reaching a hand up slowly until it was almost touching the medic's helm. Before he made contact, however, Ratchet's whole frame started to suddenly shake and a wail rose in his vocal cords and the medic threw down his welder only to conceal his face behind his hands. Sideswipe stumbled back in shock at the sudden movement and Sunstreaker had to keep repeating to himself that he did_ not _get worried about anyone despite the overwhelming surge of concerned fear building up as he _felt_ the utter anguish in the other mech's cry.

Stumbling until his back hit the corner, Ratchet slid to the floor, his cry tapering off to small hiccups and bursts of static through the hands that remained covering his face. Glancing between themselves, the Twins slowly made their way towards the shaking medic, Sunstreaker lightly sliding off the medberth and Sideswipe making his cautious way around it.

Ratchet didn't know what was happening any more. How could he possibly make sense of anything as his processors just _refused _to, for just one moment, Primus damn it, stand still. Constantly, frantically jumping from thought to thought, stepping and plummeting across plateaus and jackrabbiting from step to step in a never ending journey towards—

What?

Ratchet clutched his hands tighter against his face and ruthlessly crushed down the returning wail he could feel in his vocal cords that all but begged to be released. He felt the change of air from medical sensors that were set too high but nothing seemed to just be _working_ the way he _fraging_ _wanted it to_ at the moment as the Twins settled themselves on either side of him against the wall.

"I…I…" Ratchet's voice was shaky and it cracked as the repressed wail beat against its cage and demanded to be unleashed. _I'm sorry…_

The medic curled into himself, hands dropping from his face but only enough to bring his knees to his chest and then he was digging the harsh planes of his knees into his optics as he tried to do something to make his processors stop feeding and filtering him all this…emotion straight from _something _and directly to his spark in a continuous circle and it pumped intake by intake and his fuel lines—

They _burned_. The burned with a frozen acid that met and fused and caused every servo to positively ache. A whimper made it past the block Ratchet had tried to force on his vocal cords and he couldn't face what he knew he must look like.

Pathetic, needy, and…_desperate_. Ratchet shook his head and whimpered one more time, stiffening in surprise as he felt a pair of arms encircling him from his right, "Don't do that, Ratch."

The soft command breathed directly in his audio receptor forced another shudder to run through his frame but he refrained from uttering another sound as the voice requested.

"What've you done to yourself, Ratch…" the voice continued to muse and the arms tightened slightly. Ratchet raised his head from his knees only enough to take note of the red paint flashing in the harsh ceiling light.

"Si...Sides…" Ratchet's voice, though it cracked from his continued static, was still stronger than before.

"I'm here. Might not have been your first choice, but I'm here." The red twin said, laughter clear in his voice. Ratchet throbbed as he wanted to laugh, too, but he felt too raw to even try and attempt the motion.

"So am I," the voice from his left was unexpected though Ratchet really should have been expecting it, wherever Sideswipe went Sunstreaker was sure to go.

"Sunny…" Ratchet breathed and he lifted his face from his knees completely to share in shock at the golden Twin.

"What?" Sunstreaker asked snidely at the two looks of amazement and astonishment aimed at him, "I'm not allowed to be empathetic every once in a while?"

"I never figured it was for lack of _wanting _but rather a lack of _being able to_." Sideswipe piped up from Ratchet's other side and Sunstreaker growled and made a halfhearted swipe at him.

Caught between the friendly and familiar banter, Ratchet managed a small, weak smile. Noticing the sad attempt at joviality, the Twins simmered down and nailed the medic with duel looks of tell-us-what-happened-or-_else_.

As he was wedged between the two, Ratchet had no where to hide as he suddenly became the subject of such scrutiny. Nevertheless, the medic drew himself to sit up straighter and attempted to diffuse the situation, "Please, don't make any more of this than it really is, I swear I'm—"

"If he says he's fine, I reserve the right to do something unsettling." Sunstreaker declared, shooting his brother a look.

"Agreed." His brother stated, narrowing his optics at the squirming medic.

Ratchet didn't _want_ this right now. His processors were still all but drowning in the sudden onslaught of emotional sensation but he could feel that he was gaining ground and soon he might be able to control himself again—talking with the Twins wouldn'thelp that in any way. He needed to restrain these emotions, not _talk_ about them.

"Don't…don't do this." Ratchet pleaded and with every syllable he could feel the ground he had gained crumble beneath him.

"And if we don't? Then what? You'll just let…whatever it is fester all over again and then you'll just break down_ again_ and there might not be someone to pick up the pieces when that happens." Sideswipe drew the medic more tightly against him as he spoke, Ratchet's helm nestling of its own accord against a red shoulder.

"We might not be the best suited for your problems—we're not Wheeljack or anything. But we're here, so you might as well talk to us." Sunstreaker said bluntly, dragging himself to sit against the wall that met perpendicular to the one that Sideswipe and Ratchet were leaning against, propping his feet up on Ratchet's lap as the medic's legs unfurled from their position.

Ratchet clenched his fingers together into fists as he fought for control, "This is ridiculous. Nothing's wrong, and I'm—"

"Be careful with those 'I'm' statements, Ratch. Sunny's promised to do something alarming if you say what I'm thinking you were thinking about saying." Sideswipe admonished, knocking Ratchet's helm with his knuckles.

_Please, please, please_, Ratchet thought to himself, his spark pulsing as his circuits started to go haywire again and he could sense those damnable thoughts coming to bare upon his CPU again, _please, please, _please!

Bringing one hand up to press against his optics, Ratchet didn't know what they wanted from him anymore—an explanation? But then when the words fell short after they were given an unsettling weight there would be no other place for them and they could only be dragged down and down to a never ending sea of horrible, awful, disgusting _understanding._

"Take it away…" Ratchet whimpered and he tore his hand from his optics and furiously dug his head into the shoulder he had been leaning against. _Please, take it away…the night, the day, the sad, pitiful wet blanket that is all that remains of a once proud and prideful outcropping of memory and moments and _hope_._

"You've got to tell us what we're taking away here, doc." Sideswipe said gently, reaching up to guide the medic's face out of his shoulder with a hand on his chin. Sunstreaker sat forward from his relaxed stance and reached a hand out enough to lay it on a shuddering shoulder, catching his twin's gaze and they spent a moment in a shared look of anguish for the shivering bot between them.

"Everything." Ratchet's tone was so light that for a second the Twins thought they didn't hear him.

"Everything?" Sunstreaker echoed, raising an eyebrow ridge.

"All of it. _All_—every Primus damn piece of every Primus damn thing." Ratchet's voice grew with every word and despite the shakes that still penetrated his steady tone the rage echoing in the medic's voice was enough to cause the Twins to draw slightly back.

"Alright. Everything, then." Sideswipe said after a moment, glancing briefly at his brother.

"No." Ratchet said suddenly, his fists unclenching and he drew himself away from Sideswipe's side, his optics glowing, "N—No…I don't mean that. Forget it."

"Ratchet." Sunstreaker growled and Sideswipe had to agree with his twin's tone. What did Ratchet think he was trying to _pull _here? They just saw him break down, they knew he wasn't—

"Really, I'm fine."

—fine.

Sunstreaker twitched and launched himself forward, twisting and throwing himself over the medic, Sideswipe smartly edging himself out of his twin's path. Legs splayed to either side of Ratchet's hips as the golden bot kneeled over Ratchet's stunned form, Sunstreaker grasped both sides of the medic's face and held it still, his elbows locking down to force and keep Ratchet's shoulders and arms against the wall. Leaning in dangerously close, Sunstreaker growled out, "What did I say about saying that?" before he proceeded to do something rather unsettling.

Ratchet couldn't stop his mouth from opening—in shock, really, and not because of the heat that was pooling in his circuits from merely a _kiss_—as Sunstreaker assaulted his mouth. This…this couldn't be helping matters at the moment. Ratchet could, perhaps, concede that it did help him forget about his problems, but while it was doing so it just seemed to manage to bring up a whole _other_ set of them.

Like why wasn't he pushing the golden twin off? Or why did he feel the need to moan into the kiss like he was_ enjoying_ it? Why did he feel the insatiable need to return the playful swipes of glossa and why, oh _why _did his body feel that it was appropriate to be _turned on_ by these actions?

Sunstreaker pulled back after a moment, his vents hissing air nosily and Ratchet wasn't nearly as embarrassed as he thought he should be by the fact that his were doing the same thing.

"Aw! Why'd ya stop?" A voice whined to their right and Ratchet's optics went wide before he sharply turned to see a grinning Sideswipe, the red twin's lecherous grin aimed most assuredly at them.

Sunstreaker merely rolled his optics, "Because I said I'd do something unsettling, not mind-breaking."

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind!" Sideswipe continued to whine and Ratchet couldn't believe his audios.

"Excuse me? I _am_ still in the room!" he said furiously, breaking his shoulders out of the golden bot's weakened grip and raising his arms enough to bat away the hands still framing his face.

"Hey, you haven't known what you wanted from the start of this conversation, Ratch. Therefore your vote is moot." Sideswipe said confidently, his smile still in place.

"What we were talking about at the _beginning_ of this conversation and what you're planning on doing _now_ are two entirely different subjects!" Ratchet said, flustered at the twin's cheek.

"Eh. A minor detail."

"_Minor?!"_

"Can you get him to stop talking again?" Sideswipe asked, glancing at his brother. Sunstreaker just gusted more air out of his intakes as he gave his brother a look before dragging Ratchet's face back to lock optics with him.

"Looks like you've been outvoted here, Ratch." That was all the warning Sunstreaker gave before he swooped in to claim Ratchet's mouth in another blistering kiss, the medic's cries of outrage quickly morphing into cries of something else as the golden twin plundered his mouth.

Ratchet's processors were once again swimming in sensation but rather than dragging him down and piercing his CPU with a blinding sense of despair, they did the exact opposite. The medic could feel his plating heating up and the warnings flashing at him more than assured him that a few systems were getting an rather unneeded and potentially damaging influx of power, but at the moment Ratchet didn't really have enough concentration to do much more than bask in the sense of feeling something _other_ then the usual desolation that had been haunting him lately.

Sunstreaker shifted, settling down on the floor between Ratchet's legs and slipping his own legs underneath the medic's shaking ones, all the while never breaking the kiss that was slowly but surely melting Ratchet's CPU into one big pile of goo. Ratchet mewled into Sunstreaker's mouth as the golden twin's glossa did a fantastic twist that caressed the roof of his mouth so _deliciously_. The medic let out another wordless noise of pleasure as the warrior's hands abruptly left his face only to wrap around his middle, dragging him onto the other's lap and suddenly Sunstreaker was the one kissing up and that just gave him all sorts of new angles to lick and nibble and Ratchet almost couldn't believe that he might just overload from nothing but a _kiss._

The golden twin growled into his mouth as Ratchet couldn't seem to stop uttering small cries every time Sunstreaker did…_anything_, really, and when the medic reached his hands to hesitantly caress the fins framing Sunstreaker's helm, the warrior let loose a growl that rumbled through his chassis and caused his engine to sputter to life in a quick burst of throttle. Ratchet's optics shuttered rapidly at the sensation of the bot's engine rubbing at his armor seams just so and he couldn't think to do more than increase the pressure of his hands on the fins, digging in slightly with his digits.

"You can't imagine how good you look right now." The unexpected whisper slid across his audios like silk and Ratchet could only groan as the red twin settled between him and the wall, the weight warm on his back and suddenly there were two engines purring against him and Ratchet couldn't keep the sensations apart and everything just melded into a mash of _good_.

He could hear the rushed intakes from the bot behind him and he dimly realized that Sideswipe was just as aroused as his brother and Ratchet spent barely a fraction of a moment to wonder if that was because of their bond or the show he had inadvertently helped to put on, but he couldn't be bothered to focus enough to find an answer. His mouth was still captured by the twin in front of him and he had enough trouble focusing on remembering who he even _was_ with the stimulus coming at him from every angle that the sudden cable seeking entrance at one of his data ports was accepted with hardly any qualms from his firewalls.

As Sideswipe's cable locked into one of his ports, Ratchet couldn't help but groan into Sunstreaker's—wonderful, talented, beautiful—mouth as suddenly his CPU was assaulted by the red twin and his thoughts and everything that Sideswipe _was_ suddenly flooded all of Ratchet and the medic cried out, not from loss of self but from the _acceptance_ assured to him by the sudden comforting presence that brought no judgment but merely recognition and, though he both loathed and loved it, _understanding_.

"Primus, Ratchet…" The red twin groaned into his audio receptor and though Ratchet wouldn't have been able to see him from his position even _if_ his optics weren't fritizing enough to manage to work, that didn't stop him from imagining how he _must_ look with his optics shuttered, mouth gaping and intakes gasping as his hands clenched where they were wrapped around Ratchet's waist above his brother's own tensing arms.

Ratchet felt the shudder behind him as Sideswipe, temporarily up-linked into his systems, caught the wayward mental picture and the medic couldn't help but smirk into Sunstreaker's lips.

Catching the slight change, the golden twin finally broke their mouths apart, though only far enough to whisper against the medic's lips, "Don't get too cocky there, Ratch."

"Whatever you—say!" Ratchet just barely managed to choke out the last word as Sunstreaker plugged himself into another one of his ports and his CPU was once again immersed in another presence and suddenly the both of them were there and Ratchet just couldn't seem to think as his mouth could only gasp and gape in a silent scream as he leaned his forehead against Sunstreaker's.

"Don't think we're done just yet, medic." Sideswipe panted behind him and Ratchet had an astrosecond to wonder just what he meant by those words before both bots started to send him packets of data that were so perfectly synchronized that Ratchet had the feeling that they'd done this before.

Catching the thought, Sunstreaker snickered but Ratchet couldn't form enough will to do more than whimper at him. Gathering himself mentally as much as he could through the continued pleasurable onslaught, Ratchet decided that there was no way he was overloading alone. Narrowing his optics in resignation, Ratchet started to send his own data back over the duel lines and all but _threw_ it at the Twins.

Unprepared for the raw intensity of the medic's data, both Twins groaned simultaneously. "Tha…that's new." Sideswipe panted into his neck.

"Trick...trick of the trade." Ratchet ground out, though he couldn't manage much more than that as he was still suffering from the Twins' unique brand of torture.

"You…you know that we'd do it, don't you?" Sunstreaker asked as he continued to send information across the link, his vents skipping at the returned flow.

"Wh—what?" Ratchet didn't know what he was talking about and at the moment he was_ so close_ that he asked in more of a reflex then an actual want to know what the other bot was taking about.

"We'd take it all away. Everything—we'd do it. We'd do it for you." Ratchet froze at the words and he could feel something in him break and he was sure that everyone must have heard the crack and then he was over the edge and feeling rushed into sensation and overflowed as a sea of pleasure crashed on him and he was _lost_ in it, it was so strong and so amazing and so spectacular and so _wonderfully painless_.

Blacking out, Ratchet had a moment to realize that his own overload had caused the Twins to slip into their own before his CPU shorted out and drew him into unconsciousness.

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"Hey, ah…Boss?" The hesitant voice slowly drew Ratchet back to the land of the waking.

"Hmmm?" Ratchet mumbled, unshuttering his optics enough to glance briefly at a concerned looking First Aid as his CPU tried to keep up with him and slowly stuttered to a start. Concerned, however, insomuch as a mech with a facemask _and_ a visor could look, he supposed, but he figured he'd spent enough time around the bot to be able to read his emotions somewhat.

"Are you…ah, do you…well, um, ah…Everything okay here?" The bot stammered, gesturing slightly to the two still offlined bots Ratchet was currently tangled with.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Naw, everything's fine." Ratchet said, a small, sated smile creeping up his own faceplates for the first time in a long while as the first thoughts his processors presented him with _weren't_ those of dismay and anguish but…hope. That maybe he might have found something—good.

"If you're sure…" the medic in training tried to make sure, nevertheless backing away slightly from the strange sight of his mentor sprawled on the floor with the Twin Terrors, quickly making it past where the previous barrier of curtain used to be before the protectobot had gotten worried and opened it to see if everyone was okay.

From the snickering he could hear behind him, he was sure that most everyone who was still in the medbay was privy to the realization that, yes, everyone was really, _really_ okay, "I'll just…ah, be going then." And without waiting for a response, the bot turned on his heal and stalked past a giggling Swoop and guffawing patients to the office in the back, desperate for some of the high grade that Ratchet kept there for those days that just seemed to take you by surprise.

Desperately grabbing a cube and all but falling into the chair at Ratchet's desk, and trying to do everything _but _replay the image that was all but burned into his processors, First Aid decided that this most definitely qualified as such.

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Okay, happy ending. Because I really, really wanted one. My third attempt at smut, and my second at threesome, so I hope it managed to work out okay because I'm still in Padawan mode for such. But I got a kick out of it, and I hope someone else might have, too. Care to tell me what you thought? Because you CAN in a REVIEW! :D


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